Gandi Bar

As you may know,
Gandi doesn't advertise as a matter of principle. We believe there are
ways of letting people know we exist without spamming them or shoving
ads in their faces. In other words, we won't pay for a captive audience.

Gandi's service itself is its marketing, and our customers are our only marketing department.

We
believe in the power of creativity and ethics when it comes to success (this goes for people as well as companies and organizations). At Gandi, we try to have plenty of both. In an economy and a society dominated by
intrusive marketing and questionable business practices, it is
becoming more and more apparent that people, making informed choices
based on their own standards, can be the most effective force in guiding the internet in a positive direction.

What
all this means is that we are in the uniquely delightful situation of
having an outreach budget, but refusing to buy the thing that most
companies spend lots of money on: ads.

So
what do we spend that money on, you ask? Well, here are some of the
things we've spent our antimarketing budget on in the last year or so:

An unConference of One's Own: She's Geeky

Fighting
injustice is hard enough when you have a clear target, and things like
pervasive microinequities are anything but. Sometimes, the most
effective way to deal with a failing system is to build your own
alternative. We applaud this spirit, and that's why we're proud to
support and participate in safe, friendly spaces in IT like the Bay Area
She's Geeky unConference.

This
year, Gandi US provided a community sponsorship for the Bay Area She's
Geeky unconference, and sent two of our employees to check it out.

She's
Geeky offers an opportunity for women in technology to come together to
share ideas and strategies as well as network in an informal,
self-directed way. The unConference format -- no formal agenda,
participants propose their own sessions and lead them that day -- turns
talks into conversations by encouraging participation from everyone
present, and allows participants the flexibility to explore topics that
might not make it into the program of a large conference, such as:

Mob Programming (it's like a flash mob, only quieter)

How to tackle difficult conversations at work

Hiring the best by hiring the people your competitors discriminate against

She's
Geeky includes all the perks of a traditional conference, though:
raffles every day (lucky winners walked away with a Raspberry Pi and a
Dell Venue 8 tablet, among other things), and, of course, tons of swag.
If you were there you might have even gotten a coveted "#No_bullshit" Gandi
t-shirt (more on this in a moment).

We met a lot of amazing developers, sysadmins and hackers, from rainbow-dyed mohawks to gray ponytails.

In particular, we'd like to give some props to:

ThoughtWorks, whose mission is "to better humanity through software and help drive the creation of a socially and economically just world."

Sustainable swag?

Speaking of t-shirts, we've started getting ours from Bandwagon Merch, a screen printing and design studio based in Kansas City, MO. We buy the highest quality shirts from fair labor, American shops. You don't buy your domains from the cheapest registrar you can find. Why should we do any differently with swag?

Geekli.st #Hack4Good

Several times a year, Geeklistthrows #hack4good, a global hackathon in which people all over the planet spend a weekend
coding up ideas that will make the world a better place. Gandi
contributes to this effort by providing domain names and webhosting so that the winning projects can live on, as well as #hack4good t-shirts for attendees.

Domains4Good

Domains4Good originated as a project at the aforementioned #Hack4Good hackathon in San Francisco in October 2013. This so-simple-yet-so-brilliant service parks your domains, redirecting them every day to a social cause chosen by the community.

Don't feel so bad now about that domain-buying binge you went on last night, do you?

We know what you're thinking: why isn't this integrated into Gandi.net so you can buy your domains and park them with domains4good in one click? Patience, grasshopper. We're working on it.

Unfilter

Jupiter
Broadcasting has some amazing podcasts, but one in particular is right
up our alley. It's called Unfilter, and it's one of the most informative
sources on the intersection between politics and the internet. Their
coverage of Snowden's leaks exposing the NSA's illegal mass surveillance
is especially awesome.

The
Unfilter show doesn't accept advertisers, in order to ensure they are
only accountable to their listeners, which gave us happy feels.

As
you can imagine, this is our kind of show, so we made a
no-strings-attached donation to the general Jupiter Broadcasting fund
with a request that the money be used to ensure that Unfilter keeps
existing.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

The
EFF needs no introduction; they are doing some of the most important work of our era. We rely
heavily on them for the information and analysis that serves as our
guidance as we work towards a better internet, so crucial to a free
society. It is with humble gratitude that we support the EFF, provide
their domains, and plaster their stickers everywhere.

That's awesome.

And that's not even close to all we do! Check out a somewhat more complete list of our supported projects here.

On a related note, if you appreciate the fact that we don't advertise, it would be awesome if you could take a moment to follow us. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Geekli.st and Github, and you can probably find us elsewhere too.

By the way, if you know of an event or a cause you think we'd be into,
let us know in the comments, or tweet us at @gandibar. We love hearing from you!

Related posts:

Comments

Gandi's lack of advertising is exactly why I am able to shock everyone I know when they first give the service a try! One of my co-workers was spending hours on the phone with a certain other registrar trying to cancel some domains they were no longer using, after a short conversation with him he's a Gandi lifer now

you guys are awesome, earlier i evaded gandi thinking you guys are aristocrats, that you didn't think on lines of eff, gnu, free-open web, & free-world because domains here are a bit over what other registrars offer, but i was wrong and not just in small proportion i was hugely wrong, i knew about gandi and namecheap being registrars who didn't budge against nsa, now when i am learning about you guys, how passionate you are, becaause you not only think on those lines, you are one of the bastions or rather a draw bridge! thank you gandi!